3/03/2004 @ 11:00AM

What Mel's Passion Will Earn Him

Mel
Gibson
Mel Gibson
stands to personally make more than $300 million for pursuing his Passion.

At the close of its fifth day in theaters, the controversial The Passion of the Christ movie officially grossed $125.2 million, and industry experts anticipate that the international box office sales could hit $650 million by the end of its run. That’s the third-best five-day opening ever, behind
Time Warner
‘s
Matrix Reloaded and
Sony
‘s
Spider-Man, beating out blockbusters like Academy Award darling Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and
The Walt Disney Co.
‘s
Finding Nemo.

Gibson and his
Icon Productions
outfit provided the film’s sole backing, spending about $30 million on production costs and an estimated $15 million on what have been exceptionally successful marketing and advertising efforts. Those costs already have been covered–a feat in and of itself. “That’s a lot more than most movies do. Most don’t break even with just domestic distribution.” says BoxOfficeMojo.com President Brandon Gray. “Normally they need international box office, and rental and sales income from DVDs and video [to do that].”

The early box office numbers suggest that Passion could rake in $350 million in the U.S. and Canada, and possibly another $300 million internationally, depending upon the kind of distribution it gets overseas. Assuming Gibson has typical arrangements with theaters and his distributor,
Newmarket Films
, he should personally pocket 40% to 50% of that $650 million gross.

Gibson also gets a cut of the sales of Passion merchandise, including mugs and nail pendants, which could really add up: The Christian retail market is worth an estimated $4.2 billion. Licensing deals vary widely, but studios–in this case Gibson’s company–generally get between 9% and 15% of the products’ wholesale values. Critics have questioned how tasteful it is to peddle replicas of the nails used to affix Christ to the cross. But
Motive Entertainment
President
Paul
Lauer
Paul Lauer
, who headed up the movie’s marketing efforts, says he’s teamed up with Christian retailing veterans.

Next is the film’s release on DVD and video, expected sometime this summer, by
Fox Entertainment
. On the basis of box office sales thus far, Alexander & Associates media research outfit principle Bob Alexander estimates that at least 8 million copies of the film will be sold. Translation: roughly another $75 million for Mel. “The wild card with this movie is that this is not just entertainment, it’s a religious experience for people,” says Alexander. He thinks people will be more inclined to buy such a movie as a gift, and expects that religious organizations will buy it in bulk.

Mel Gibson fell off of the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2003, after making the cut in both 2002 and 2001. But he’s sure to have that stature restored, thanks to the piles of money that this movie stands to make and the copious press coverage that it’s received.